


Succession

by torinosu



Category: Death Note & Related Fandoms, Death Note (Anime & Manga), Death Note: Another Note
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Character Death, Consensual Underage Sex, Hand Jobs, Implied/Referenced Suicide, It’s hinted at that B kills some animals, M/M, Mild Blood, Mild Gore, Mild Language, Non-Graphic Violence, Prequel, Wammy House, introspective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-26
Updated: 2020-06-26
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:22:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24929113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/torinosu/pseuds/torinosu
Summary: Beyond is afraid of death, and he knows that A’s is drawing nearer.A story about uncertainty.
Relationships: A/Beyond Birthday
Kudos: 9





	Succession

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in 2014, and I recently found the file and decided to rework it a bit and upload it here

“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.” - Plato 

*

  
Beyond is scared of death, and he definitely knows A is petrified of it, the way he's shaking when Beyond brings him out to the small woodland that sits behind Wammy's house, brings him out here to see the body.

It's a rabbit, small and grey and still. It would probably look like a toy, Beyond thinks, if it's throat hadn't been ripped out, a gash of red against the soft grey of it's fur. Probably a cat or a fox, he guesses.

A's face has gone white, each freckle standing out starkly, "why did you show me this?" he asks.

"I think we should bury it" Beyond says, scuffing the dirt by the body with his shoe, "don't you?"

"It would be sad to leave it like this" A's mouth turns down, "too sad"

Beyond eyes the floating numbers above A's head.

"Yeah" he says.

*  
  


Beyond is scared of death, but he becomes fascinated with it. 

About a month after he and A bury the rabbit, he goes back out to the woods to dig it back up. 

It's just a mass of dark flesh andwhite bone, now. Beyond's nose wrinkles at the smell.

He wonders if he'll look like this when he's dead. Just flesh rotting away to bone. He doesn't think so, because it seems so irrevocably human, and he isn't human.

He can't be.

*

A comes to him at breakfast. Beyond is eating jam and toast that is more jam than bread. His fingers are sticky and he licks them idly as he squints up at the glowing numbers just floating over A's head menacingly. 

"I saw you" A says, glancing around to make sure nobody can hear, "why do you keep going to look at it?"

Beyond shrugs, sticking the end of his index finger in his mouth and noticing the way A blushes.

"Did you kill it?" A asks and Beyond scowls at him. 

"What the fuck" he says around his finger, "no, I didn't"

A wrings his hands together, "well I don't know. It's like returning to the scene of the crime, right?"

"For someone who's supposed to be a genius, you're so fucking stupid" Beyond says, standing and pushing past A to leave the dining room.

The hurt look on A's face makes him feel better for a little while.

*  
  


He's always been able to see them, the names and the numbers, and he's always known what they stand for and that he should keep the fact that he can see them a secret, even though nobody has ever told him.

It wasn't until he was older that he started to be able to figure out dates from the jumble of numbers.

A's death date keeps getting nearer.

*

Wammy asks to see him, and Beyond goes to his office, knees muddy from kneeling next to the rabbit grave. The body is nothing but bones now.

Wammy peers at him over the top of his glasses and asks him how his studies are going.

Beyond just shrugs.

"L is coming next month" Wammy says, "he wants to talk to you and A"

Beyond shrugs again. Wammy sighs, the rush of air making his moustache ripple.

"You would do well to take these things seriously" he says, "becoming L's successor is of grave importance"

"Okay" Beyond says and scuffs the toe of his boot against the hardwood floor. Then, "can I go now?"

Wammy sighs again, but nods.

*

A finds him later, when he's on the swing in the garden, the chains wound together tight. He wonders if, when he lets go, his brains would scramble inside his skull as he spins. He kind of hopes so. 

"Did Wammy tell you about L?" A asks, gripping one of the swing chains.

Beyond snorts, "yeah. I don't give a shit"

"But you have to!" A says, "you have to give a shit"

Beyond squints up at him, looking at A's face instead of his numbers, "why?"

"Be...because..." A screws his face up, "it's important?" He says it like a question, and it hangs in the air between them.

A stumbles back a few steps when Beyond shoves him one handed away from the swing and lets himself spin. 

He's not sure if anything is important at all.

*

The other rabbit is brown, and just as small as the first. A worries his bottom lip between his teeth as he looks between it and Beyond. 

They're standing round the back of the house, in the narrow space between the stone wall of the house and a small shed that's used for storing gardening equipment.

"It was me" Beyond says, "I killed it"

It thrills him a little to admit it, and to see the look of horror spread over A's freckled face.

"The other one is just bones now" he continues, "boring"

"You're insane" A says.

Beyond laughs.

*

Days go by. Beyond expects Wammy to pull him aside, to reprimand him for killing the rabbit, a look of deep disappointment in his eyes, but it doesn't happen. 

He finds A in the library, his speckled nose buried in a thick book. He leans over to glance at the cover and snorts.

"Sherlock Holmes" he says, "the _Great Detective_ " 

A purses his lips and says nothing.

"Think you're going to be like him?" Beyond says, "think you're going to be like L?" He leans forward and uses both hands to slam the book closed. A jumps and shoves both hands in his lap.

"You didn't tell anyone about the rabbit" Beyond says, "you're an accessory to _murder_ " he draws out the last word and A glances around quickly in case they're not alone.

Beyond laughs and A scowls at him.

"What about you?" A says, "you never take anything seriously" 

Beyond shrugs. 

"Do you even understand how important the work L does is?" A says, his voice growing shrill, "how much pressure we're under? And you just... play around! " 

Beyond bends at the waist so he's eye level with A, who shrinks back a little at the closeness. 

He grins, "I know how to relieve some of that pressure"

He reaches out and settles his hand between A's legs, making the other boy gasp, his face immediately flushing scarlet. 

A doesn't do anything to stop Beyond, even when he undoes the front of his jeans and slips his hand underneath the material, gripping his length. He just holds the sides of his seat, his knuckles growing white.

"You liked it when I showed you the body" Beyond whispers into A's ear as he pumps his hand up and down slowly, "it thrilled you to keep it a secret" he licks the shell of his ear and swipes his thumb over the head of A's cock, drawing a sharp gasp from him. 

"Just like the one I killed" Beyond is panting now, heat pooling low in his belly. He's hard, "our dirty little secret" 

He stills as A comes with a groan, he can feel him spill over his hand. Beyond pulls his hand out of A's jeans and whispers once more into his ear, "in French they call that a little _death_ " 

He stands straight and laughs, revelling in the flushed, horrified state A is in. He raises his hand to his lips and licks the come there, just to see A's eyes widen even more, almost bulging out of his head.

Beyond spins on his heel and walks out of the library.  
  


*

L speaks to them separately. 

Beyond is instructed to wait outside Wammy's office while A is ushered inside by the old man. He doesn't look at Beyond, wouldn't even stand too close to him.

He comes out later, when Beyond is idly picking pieces of crumbling yellow plaster from the walls in the corridor. His face is ashen and his shoulders are stiff. Beyond looks up and watches the numbers instead. They glow red and pulse over his head but don't throw out any light. The corridor is still as piss yellow as ever.

"B" Wammy says, sticking his head out of the door.

*

L is eating a huge slice of chocolate cake with the fork balanced precariously from his fingers. 

Beyond watches his movements warily. It's a whole two minutes before L speaks.

"I understand that you haven't been attending your classes" he says. His voice is monotonous and quiet and Beyond wants to scream into a pillow.

"Why bother?" He says instead, smirking, "I know everything already"

"Believe me when I tell you that you do not know everything" L says, "people can surprise you"

Beyond's focus settles just above his head, on the lazily floating numbers. _L Lawliet_ , he thinks, _you're going to die young._

He thinks about telling him that, to show that yes, he does. He knows, he _knows_. 

He doesn't, though. Just glares until Wammy and L finally shut up about duty and purpose.

"But what if I don't want to be your successor?" He asks, and Wammy looks shocked, like he'd never considered that to be an option. L remains passive, just watching Beyond with his round, dark eyes.

Beyond keeps unwavering eye contact with L until he's dismissed.

*

He goes out to the space between the house and the shed, where the second rabbit is now buried (after A insisted) and finds A there, leaning against the stone wall of the house just looking down at the sad little lump of earth. 

"It won't be decomposed enough, yet" Beyond says and A looks up at him with disgust.

"I'm not going to _look_ at it" A says, quiet, "I feel sorry for it"

"It's just a stupid rabbit" Beyond says, then, "I told L that I don't want to be his successor"

A pushes himself away from the wall and rounds up to him, "Are you serious?" 

"Yeah" 

"Are we" A licks his lips, "are we allowed to not be?"

Beyond's eyes flick up to A's numbers and he wonders about telling him that he never will be. 

"I don't know" he says instead.

A reaches out suddenly and places his hand flat on Beyond's chest, over his heart. It's weird and Beyond freezes. 

"Why did you kill the rabbit?" A asks, a whisper, "why did you...why did you touch me?"

Beyond shrugs, "because I felt like it" he says, and A frowns like he's unsatisfied with his answer. His fingers slide into a fist against Beyond's chest.

"I won't tell anyone" he says, and leans forward to press a kiss against the corner of Beyond's mouth.  


*

They're in A's bedroom. It has the standard white walls of all the rooms at Wammy's, and while Beyond has consistent fantasies of splattering his blank walls with red, but never does anything about it and keeps them stark, impersonal, A has put up maps. A map of a town that Beyond has heard of but never been to is the centrepiece and he wonders if that's where A lived before Wammy's House.

He probably shouldn't be wondering about that when A is doing things to him with his mouth. 

From this angle all he can see is the top of A's head and the dark sweep of his eyelashes. A licks the head of his cock and Beyond grabs a handful of his hair. 

His breathing is coming hard now, and he barely suppresses a groan as A runs his tongue up the underside of his length. 

He shoves his fist, the one that's not buried in A's hair, into his mouth as he comes. His teeth split the skin of his knuckles and the coppery taste of blood floods his mouth.

A kneels back, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. His face is red and he won't look at Beyond.

*

The cat is mangy, skin and bone and obviously feral. It hisses and spits when Beyond approaches it. 

It's fur is black and patches of sore, red baldness litter it's body. 

He figures nobody will miss it.

*

Beyond is afraid of death and A's is coming closer and closer. It's like a trainwreck he can't tear his eyes from even though it horrifies him. Like when someone says don't look down but you can't help looking, and Beyond is _looking_.

He starts wondering how it'll happen, he has dreams where he's a fox and A is the first rabbit, the grey rabbit and Beyond rips his throat out with his teeth.

He starts to feel restless. The  thing between them accelerates, and there are many nights where A sneaks into Beyond's room, skin silver-pale in the slanted moonlight.

Each time Beyond wonders if they'll both die, if this is what kills them in the end.

*

L begins to visit more often, to speak to the two of them, tell them about cases he's solved to try and prepare them for what's ahead. He stares at Beyond with his hollow eyes and alwaysseems disappointed, somehow. Beyond starts to hate him viciously.

*

It's the day. The day of A's death and Beyond is out just after sunrise. 

There's a stream that runs through the field at the back of the house, about halfway to the woods. 

Beyond sits on the tiny metal bridge that crosses the stream, which is red with rust. It flakes and gets under his fingernails. 

He couldn't sleep, which is stupid. If he keeps going like this he'll end up looking like L with those deep dark circles. He grips the metal harder. 

He's afraid and he doesn't want to be. 

It's quiet apart from a frog croaking down in the stream, and the early morning light casts an orange glow over the trickling water. 

Beyond almost expects the scream the second before it starts, echoing across the grounds from the house. He closes his eyes.

Another scream, he wonders who found him. 

With a sigh he stands and climbs over the railings, standing briefly on the edge of the bridge before he jumps down, hard, and crushes the frog under his boot. 

It's silent again.

*

The dewy grass combined with the frog bits covering the soles of his shoes cause Beyond to slip a little as he makes his way back to the house. It's quiet, almost eerily so, since the screaming stopped.

There's nobody in the entrance hall, and no one on the stairs as he makes his way up two at a time. 

There's a crowd in the hallway where the boy's bedrooms are located. Particularly, outside of A's room. Wammy is desperately trying to herd the kids away from the open doorway, and he makes a desperate sort of eye contact with Beyond, who just keeps walking, parting the crying, snot nosed and now traumatised children like the Red Sea. 

And, _oh_ , there it is. 

There's no numbers and no name now, nothing but air and a length of rope above A's head. 

The laugh bubbles up out of his throat before he even realises it. 

All of that fear and it culminates to this, just a pathetic empty shell hanging from a beam on the ceiling. 

Wammy and the remaining children stare at Beyond as he laughs, doubling over and clutching the doorframe. They probably think he's hysterical, and he'll let them. He feels like he's being reborn, and he knows what he needs to do now.

*

He heads to his room, and scrubs it down, cleans until his fingers are pink and raw, so there's no remaining trace of him. It's like he never existed.

His few meagre belongings fit into one bag. 

Beyond doesn't even spare a glance back at the house as he leaves. 

*

Beyond has always been scared of death and his own is  approaching rapidly. He feels his heart give out and he knows. 

Somehow, he knows that where he’s going, A will be waiting for him. Beyond has things he wants to tell him, how he bested L at his own game. 

He thinks of stark white walls, of rabbits in shallow graves. He closes his eyes, and for the first time in a long time, he is unafraid. 

**Author's Note:**

> “and a few years after his arrest, on January 21st, 2004, serving a life sentence in a California prison, Beyond Birthday died of a mysterious heart attack” - The Los Angeles BB murder cases


End file.
